Privacy and cookie notice, other legal information and moderation policy

Introduction

Welcome to the latest version of the privacy and cookie notice and other information covering the activities of me, Mark Pack, including those carried out using the labels Liberal Democrat Newswire, Lib Dem Pointing and UK Election Law. My contact information is here and I am registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 (registration number Z2531576).

This page was last updated on 14 March 2019, with the changes since the 16 June 2018 version being about the use of WordAds on the site.

Any subsequent changes to any of the information set out here will be posted on this page and you can view earlier versions of the content of this page here.

How I may gather your personal data

I primarily use the legal basis of consent for processing personal data that you supply to me and therefore I only receive such data after you have given your consent. I may also process data under the legal basis of legitimate interest, such as to ensure the security of the sites and services I run.

This gathering of data includes both data you directly supply, such as by filling out a form, and also data provided when you interact with one of the services I operate digitally, such as the IP address, browser type and operating system of the device used.

The data gathered via surveys and forms may include special category data, such as whether or not you are a member of the Liberal Democrats. Such data may also come from you posting a comment in which you choose to reveal such information, e.g. “As a member of the Liberal Democrats, I disagree with your claim that…”

What I may do with your personal data

I may use personal data you provide to keep you informed about my views, my activities and other news and information which I think you will find of interest. This final category focuses heavily, but not exclusively, on information about UK politics and in particular opinion polls and the Liberal Democrats.

I may tailor the content supplied to you based on the personal data you have previously provided and may also use the data to ensure the security of the systems and to check comments before publication, both for spam and to apply the comment moderation policy (see below).

I may also use your personal data to process any donations or payments (such as to purchase a book) that you make to me.

Any special category data you have consented to give me will be used only for the purposes of analysing the results of the surveys or forms used to gather it, and for providing direct follow-up to any points raised in those answers, unless the data is contained in a comment that you have chosen to submit for publication, in which case it may be published.

The routes via which I may contact you include:

Email (if you have provided an email address),

Facebook Messenger (if you have subscribed to a Messenger Bot or otherwise I have permission to message you),

RSS feeds (if you have subscribed to one or more of them),

Website notifications (if you have subscribed to them),

Online advertising (if you have provided information or taken actions that permit me to target advertising at you, such as by liking a Facebook page, visiting one of my websites and accepting cookies, or providing your email address),

Telephone or post (if you have provided your phone number or postal address), and

Via publishing content on webpages.

Sharing and storing data

I will not share your data with anyone else except:

If required to do so by law (for example, by the police with appropriate legal authority),

If I have first asked for, and been given, your permission to do so, or

If I am using their services to deliver one of the methods of communication set out above, such as to send you emails, or to ensure the smooth and secure provision of those methods of communication, such as to check submitted comments for spam before publication.

A service provider will only have personal data passed to them under this final category if their own systems, standards and legal terms are compliant with the requirements of GDPR. Their use to process your data will also be governed by their own privacy notices. Some of the service providers mentioned above may store personal data outside the E.U. and they will only be used in this way if the transfer of data outside the E.U. is done in accordance with Chapter V of GDPR. (You can read more about the safeguards involved on the Information Commissioner’s website here.)

If you choose to interact with one of my profiles or pages on a social network, such as Facebook or Twitter, that interaction may result in personal data being shared with me by the social network operating under its own legal contract with yourself.

My sites may display adverts served up by Google, MessageSpace or WordAds. If you choose to interact with the adverts, such as by accepting cookies from them or by clicking on an advert, then your personal data may be processed by them, subject to their own privacy policies.

For your convenience, here is a list of the main service providers with links to their own privacy policies:

My own data records are separate from those of the Liberal Democrats. Any data provided to me as a member of the Liberal Democrats is kept separate and data is only shared if there is a clear legal basis for doing so, such as having asked your consent before gathering the data.

Withdrawing your consent

You may at any time withdraw the consent you have given for me to process personal data from you.

Online advertising: by blocking either all ads or just the ads from myself using the options provided by the relevant advertising network, such as the option in Facebook to block all ads from the Lib Dem Newswire Facebook page; you can also request via mark.pack@libdemnewswire.com that I do not use your email address for targeting adverts via features such as Facebook’s custom audiences or Twitter’s tailored audiences,

Cookies and tracking pixels: by blocking one or more of the cookies and tracking pixels that my site(s) would otherwise place, and

Cookies and tracking pixels

My family of sites may place cookies and tracking pixels on the device from which you are accessing them. The emails I send out may also use a tracking pixel. You can opt-out of any or all at any time by using the blocking features in your web browser or a third-party tool such as Ghostery.

The sites provide information about this privacy policy when you first visit them and they respect requests to block cookies, such as via the cookie options in your web browser. If you do not wish to accept any cookies from my sites, and have already accepted the initial cookie message on first visiting, please adjust your settings accordingly. You can also use the setting in your email service/program to block the tracking pixels in emails.

The sites use cookies and/or tracking pixels for the following purposes (full details can be found by clicking on the links, including what anonymous, pseudonymous and/or personally identifiable data they gather):

Displaying advertisements, such as WordAds (supplied by Automattic which also places non-advertising cookies – details here). These advertisements may be personalised although no personal data is reported to me and the use of your personal data by the adverts is subject to their own privacy policies with no functionality or content of my sites being unavailable if you do not accept advertising cookies,

Retention of data

Personal data which you provide via cookies will be retained for no more than two years.

Other data which is not special category data will be retained as long as it is required to accurately deliver information to you by the means set out above and to meet regulatory requirements (e.g. for tax purposes and for compliance with laws on electoral finance).

This may include retaining data after you have made an unsubscribe or similar request to ensure that you are not subsequently sent information by mistake and to protect against, for example, malicious attempts to add you to lists you do not wish to be a member of.

Special category data will not be retained for longer than five years.

You can, in addition, exercise your legal rights for data to be deleted if you wish.

Anonymous aggregate statistics may be retained when personal data is deleted.

Sponsored content and affiliates

I have occasionally run sponsored posts. All of these are labelled as such in the post and only express views I freely and genuinely hold.

I am a participant in the Amazon Europe S.à.r.l. Associates Programme and also occasionally participate in other affiliate schemes.

In all cases, these third parties do not supply any of your personal data to me and if you choose to provide any personal data to them via their systems, you should contact them direct for details of their privacy policies and information on how to opt out from their systems.

Copyright

Comment moderation policy

Comments are very welcome. I moderate comments based on whether they are polite, whether they are really from who they say they are, whether they are on topic (so please take care to post your comment on the right post) and whether they add something to the discussion rather than, for example, being a repetition of what has already been said or the repetition of a tired old insult.

You don’t have to agree with me, and indeed comments that point out errors are particularly welcome.

Website hosting

This site is published by me, Mark Pack. It is hosted by WP Engine, Irongate House, 22-30 Duke’s Place, London, EC3A 7LP, United Kingdom.

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If you submit this form, your data will be used in line with the privacy policy here to update you on the topic(s) selected. This may including using this data to contact you via a variety of digital channels.